The Cuckoo’s Calling

After losing a leg in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is currently semi-employed as a private investigator. It looks like he’s going to have to close up shop when, on the same day, he gets both a new client and a temporary assistant. The client, John Bristow, is the brother of the celebrity model, Lula Landry, who died as the result of a fall from a window three months prior. The police decided it was a suicide – John believes otherwise and is willing and able to pay. Strike’s new assistant, Robin Ellacottt, always wanted to work in a detective agency and proves herself quite competent. Strike accepts both Robin and the case.

Lula had been living in a somewhat different world, a world of millionaires and rock stars, fashionistas and the high life – or occasionally, as it turns out, the low life.

Galbraith has done a great job with the main characters. I really enjoyed both Strike and Robin. Some of the less important characters get blurred from the sheer numbers of them and several of the same “type.” This isn’t so hot in a “who done it.” The plot has enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning.

Robert Glenister does a fine job but I think it is an authentic English accent reading an authentic English crime novel – a tad difficult sometimes. (I’m not complaining!)

I was never a fan of the Harry Potter stories, but I know that had I been introduced to them as a child I would have been lost for days following a new release – shoot, I might have read them more than one time! I did read A Casual Vacancy and found that to be a very interesting and well written novel.